Duftmuseum im Farina Haus
Family perfume house since seventeen oh nine, with rococo interiors and a secret citrus-and-floral formula still mixed on site.
This guide to the Duftmuseum im Farina Haus in Cologne begins with an odd eighteenth-century prescription: a few drops of eau de cologne, stirred into water or wine and swallowed for a racing heart or a headache. It follows Giovanni Maria Farina, the Italian who first described the scent in a 1708 letter to his brother and opened his shop on this spot in 1709, naming the water after his adopted city. You'll also hear how a rival, Wilhelm Mülhens, borrowed the Farina name decades later and touched off lawsuits that ran on for years. Stand in the essence room and breathe in the citrus and orange-blossom note still mixed a few rooms away.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.